Saturday, November 30, 2013

Window on Eurasia: Up to Four Percent of Novosibirsk Residents Said HIV Infected

Paul
Goble

Staunton, November 30 – As many as four
percent of the residents of Novosibirsk
Oblast are estimated to be HIV infected and thus likely to develop AIDS, a rate
approaching those found in some sub-Saharan African countries and one that
constitutes a major health emergency in the Russian Federation as a whole,
public health officials in that Siberian region say.

But as bad as the situation is in
Novosibirsk oblast, it is even worse in Irkutsk and Kemerovo Oblasts and is
only slightly better in the Altay Kray and Tomsk Oblast, all of which are
within the boundaries of the Siberian Federal District. Beyond that district,
the situation in Sverdlovsk and Samara Oblasts are also worrisome (news.ngs.ru/more/1518008/).

Not
only is this a public health disaster, but the high costs of treating those
with HIV/AIDS means that it is a major burden on the Russian budget. A simple
calculation based on the figures provided in this article suggests that Moscow
is spending upwards of 300 million US dollars per year on HIV/AIDS medication
in Novosibirsk Oblast alone.

Natalya
Shulgina, a Novosibirsk specialist on HIV/AIDS, says that the number infected
is not only high but rising, the result of more widespread diagnostics, on the
one hand, but also of high levels of tuberculosis, which weaken the body’s
ability to fight off the infection, and the spread of drug abuse by which the
infection is spread, on the other.

The
first case of HIV/AIDS in Novosibirsk was identified in1990 in a man who had
been infected during a trip to Mozambique. He died in 1995.By the end of the 1990s, there were a total
of 308 diagnoses of the disease there, Shulgina said, most of whom had
contracted it by the sharing of needles for injection of illegal drugs.

.But over the last decade, she
continued, the disease has spread beyond that high risk group.One measure of this change: in 200, only two
to three percent of those diagnosed with HIV were working; now, 33 percent of
them are.

Treatment is available but it is very
expensive, Shulgina continued.The cost
per patient per month ranges from 200,000 to 300,000 rubles (6000 to 10,000 US
dollars) a month and more if the individual is suffering from additional
diseases.It is paid by the federal
government exclusively, she added. Novosibirsk is currently treating 4,000
cases.

The medicines are effective, she pointed
out. Before they were available, someone infected with HIV could expect to live
on average only five to ten years.Now,
with therapy, such an individual could expect to live 20 to 25 years. The
medicines have also allowed doctors to ensure that HIV-infected mothers do not pass
on the disease. A decade ago, 30 to 50 percent of children born to HIV-infected
mothers had HIV; now, the figure is 1.5-3.0 percent.

The biggest problem those with HIV have
is the public stigma of the disease.Many are afraid to tell anyone that they have the disease or even be
checked to see if they do.As a result,
they remain untreated and more likely to pass it on to others.The situation in this regard is improving,
activists say, but the numbers in Novosibirsk are an indication of how much
more needs to be done.